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Archive for the ‘niweek-2011’ Category

Last week NI hosted the 17th annual graphical system design conference in Austin, Texas. More than 3,000 engineers and scientists made it down to NIWeek and had the opportunity to network, attend technical presentations, and see NI tools in action.

In case you weren’t able to make it to NIWeek this year, here are some of our favorite apps from the show floor.

Angry Eagles

This cool app consists of an Angry Birds game recreated in LabVIEW and an actual slingshot that uses NI CompactDAQ with digital and analog I/O. Users can launch the slingshot, as they would in a regular game of Angry Birds, thereby launching a bird in the game running in LabVIEW.

Going to the Stars With NI LabVIEW

If you never thought you’d get to travel into space, think again. Commercial space flight is on the horizon. Star Systems Inc. made an appearance on the NIWeek expo floor with its prototype spacecraft for private space flight. The system includes a PXI controller and LabVIEW to integrate all the subsystems and test engine setup.

Soccer-Playing Robot

One of the objectives of RoboCup is for an entire soccer team of humanoid robots to play a team of World Cup champions and win by the year 2050. Dr. Dennis Hong and his team are getting closer and closer to meeting that goal. This year, their CHARLI-L2 humanoid robot won first place in the 2011 Adult Size RoboCup Competition. Hong brought two robots, powered by LabVIEW, to NIWeek. Not only are they adorable – they are pretty good at soccer too.

The writing's on the (water) wall: this week's LabVIEW demo unites art and science, and it is a match made in heaven. Imagine shimmering sprays of water against a backdrop of colorful light. With just the click of a mouse, the streams speed up, slow down, spell out names, trace intricate patterns, and draw beautiful things like hearts, smiling faces, and the initials NI. The engineers at Optimation Technology designed this über cool writing waterfall for trade shows and conferences, and it's currently making a splashy appearance at NIWeek 2011.

The waterfall uses NI CompactRIO (cRIO-9073), and its user interface was written with NI LabVIEW software. The power of LabVIEW allows its user to transform input data into liquid art by simply drawing his cursor on the computer interface. CompactRIO has much more capacity than the current application requires, so the team has a ton of room for future innovations. If you're currently at NIWeek, be sure to check out this cool demo in the Embedded Control Product Showcase on the NIWeek expo floor!